Are you sure about that? I've always thought that a degree was essential to get past HR at large, established companies, but it's not essential that the degree relates directly to the job you're doing.
Not necessarily. Many large companies, including even some of the FAANGs, phrase the requirement as "BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience". That being said, though, applicants who want to make use of the "or equivalent experience clause" should expect to be challenged to demonstrate that they do indeed have equivalent experience.
> What struck Major Anderson most forcibly was the almost universal inability of the prisoners to adjust to a primitive situation. "They lacked the old Yankee resourcefulness," he said. "This was partly—but only partly, I believe—the result of the psychic shock of being captured. It was also, I think, the result of some new failure in the childhood and adolescent training of our young men—a new softness."
The Vanishing Adolescent (1959), page 210: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24370505M/The_vanishing_adol...
Also, a lot of people romanticize the value of “the college experience.” Is that experience worth $150k of debt? Is a degree in social work ever worth that much? Not at all; the data proves it.
> for the average Joe a solid education is a much better bet and you are doing a disservice by spreading these second hand anecdotes
Did you hear the one about the sociology graduate working at Starbucks with 100k in debt? How about the English graduate working at a call center with $80k in debt? How about the one about the one who worked her way through a marketing degree only to end up working as an assistant manager at a local Williams Sonoma making about $18 per hour.
Let’s not spread anecdotes about how college is a better bet because for many many people, it’s not. I got a completely wasted degree in journalism, but now I work for a FAANG as a software engineer. The degree wasn’t even a consideration. So I have student debt for no good reason.
And belittling the trades, claiming physical labor is hard: that’s just elitist. Most of the trades are more active than your office jobs, but that’s what “work” often is. People have gotten soft, lazy and fat. It isn’t like the trades require 12 hours a day at the bottom of a coal mine. A sedentary lifestyle is more of a risk than being a machinist.